[ubuntu-in] Problem with Thunderbird

[Moz]

Hi Ram

>For the last year and a half my thunderbird as totally frustrated me -
>it downloads messages (from gmail) only intermittently - as a result my
>most recent message - is from about August 2007.

It is quite possible that the problem is with gmail and not with 
Thunderbird. If you can try your Thunderbird with some other mail 
service, that might give you some indications. For example, if you 
can open an account at aol.in and set it up for pop access (I have 
details for imap access but not pop access handy) and see if that 
works well for you.

I had corresponded with gmail staff some time ago and found that one 
can not download mails more than once, and if you try to download 
mails older than 1 month, then things get messed up. I have had 
problems similar to yours with other mail clients (Eudora, Evolution 
...) with the gmail pop access.

Regards,

Moz